Poet-Librarians in the Library of Babel: Innovative Meditations on Librarianship.
From Library Juice Press, 2017.
In the Note to the Reader that begins this book, the editors describe “an array of languages” in librarianship: “from the language of scholarly communication to the vocabulary and syntax of computer science; from customer service at the circulation desk to the rhetoric on employs when asking donors for funds; from the language of government in which the state-funded institutions must participate to the very modern language of branding.”
They also show this array in their book. Here, they describe thoughts in an essay and then in a poem. It is a wonderful alternating pattern, although the poems don’t seem related to the world of repositories of books and records. That may be the point: that the poet-librarians are not always attached to their workplaces.
Still, in terms of this website, several of the essays address archival work. In “and lo! your letter hit me hard: Connecting poets’ Lives and Works in Special Collections & Archives,” Patrick Williams discusses correspondence of nine poets within Syracuse University’s collections of books and archival collection. As he writes, he is working in another department as an Associate Librarian for Literature, Rhetoric, and Digital Humanities, but the reading room pulls him and the collections there he can use in lectures and classes. In a way, the archival materials, their reclusive characters, beckon him. He includes his musings via conversations with Tom McCutchon, Public Service Specialist, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University. They consider what is known by librarians and archivists in secret, not in the finding aids, and time or not for adding this knowledge, as well as the intriguing correspondence of nine well-known poets, those poets thoughts on libraries and other issues. Williams also leads us to consider the poet librarians, such as Audre Lorde and Philip Larkin.
In another essay, “Note to Self,” Processing Archivist for the Poetry Collection at the University of Buffalo, Maria Elia discusses the biographical note in finding aids and the possibility that this narrative will be the only place readers can find background information for minor poets. In a way, Elia responds to Jared Drake’s essay that urges archivists to consider how many white men received too much praise. For Elia, the tone of the biography should be considered. It should not only be the last step in processing but also the one that takes the collection into the world, ensuring its longevity as a conservator does. An archivist should make the process transparent because he or she writes from a particular period with a specific bias.
The book offers indeed many points for meditations and is a delight to read.
Keeping (and Telling) the Past 